Ghost Story - part 1

This is the first of a two-part interview with Australian Victoria Maison. Next week: Ghost story - part II, How to deal with spirits of darkness.

Two weekends ago, during the Destrehan Plantation Spring Festival, Australian mystic Victoria Maison said she saw a ghost on the stairway in the back of the plantation. Maison, from Lismore Australia, says she has been blessed with the gift of being able to speak with souls. These souls or "ghosts" appear to her seeking help.

Maison†says she only uses her gift to pray for these souls and never "calls" spirits for games and entertainment as many psychics or mediums do.

It all started, says Maison, when she was quite stunned at the age of 19 by a visit from the Virgin Mother who told her if she didn't change her ways she was going to go to hell. Praying, said Our Lady, would be a good place to start. Since the teenager had not been brought up in a religious household and didn't know how to pray at the time, the Virgin Mother told her she would teach her how. According to the Australian, that was the beginning of several appearances in which she could see and hear the Blessed Mother clearly.

Some years later, Maison said, she was shown heaven, hell and purgatory.

When the Blessed Mother took Maison to purgatory, She asked her if she would like to help the souls there. Ever since then, Maison explained, souls have been appearing to her asking for help. And remember all those stories about cemeteries being haunted? There is some truth to that, according to the mystic. Earthbound spirits, says Maison, can often be found in cemeteries, and she often goes there to pray for them. "Sometimes spirits will follow me home and appear to me that night if I didn't pray for them at the cemetery," she said.

Maison decided to visit Destrehan Plantation while in the area. She had heard that visitors to the restored plantation claim to have heard or seen ghosts. In fact, according to Destrehan guide Angie Matherne, workers once became so anxious from a rocking horse in an upstairs bedroom that could be heard rocking when no one was around that they finally took the child's toy out of the plantation.

One of the better-known ghosts at Destrehan has been a woman on the staircase. One visitor even allegedly captured her on film. This photo was at the on-site gift store until recently when the owner took it back.

While visiting the plantation, Maison put her hand on the window peering into a staircase. As she did so she said she felt and saw the spirit of a woman she called "Lucy" standing on the stairs. According to Maison, Lucy was stuck at the plantation because of the way she treated her house slaves.

"Lucy asks forgiveness for the way she treated her house slaves. She had absolute hate and viciousness toward them."

"Lucy," said Maison, seems to be the baptized or confirmation name of a mistress of the plantation. "I got a vision of her slapping a house slave," described the Australian - - who prayed over the earthbound spirit and asked Jesus to have mercy on her soul by offering good things that happened at the plantation in reparation for the sins Lucy committed.

Maison prayed for both Lucy and the house slaves she abused. As she prayed, she asked that any curses that the house slaves may have brought upon Lucy be lifted.

The Australian apparently not only has the gift of being able to speak with souls in purgatory as well as those who are "earthbound", she has been blessed with knowing how to pray for that soul.

As she was praying over the earthbound spirit she called Lucy, she included her own sins that may have been of a hateful nature and united them, and the mercy Jesus had shown her in her own life, to Lucy's sins. This, says Maison, is how Mary taught her to pray more effectively, keeping her humble and non-judgmental even when she is praying for souls with much more ominous sins than Lucy's. According to Maison, Lucy is no longer at Destrehan and has probably moved on to purgatory.

It's so important to pray for our ancestors, says Maison, not only to help them get into heaven but to help stop the effects of their sins on us. "The effects of our sins flow through 4 generations," (exodus 20).

Encounter with Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun

One of the more fascinating encounters Maison said she had was with the spirit of Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun. Braun was Hitler's favorite mistress, sticking with him until the end. According to Maison, Braun appeared to her several years ago, asking for prayers so that she could get into heaven.

Braun told Maison she was a 17-year-old model when Hitler saw her and wanted her to become one of his mistresses. She quickly became Hitler's favorite -- and his confidant.

Braun appeared to Maison all in white, walking back and forth as if she were on a runway. "Nobody will pray for me. It's my time to go to heaven but they just presume that God didn't show mercy on my soul," she explained.

"The first thing I asked her was, 'Why aren't you in Hell?'" said Maison, who had by this time grown quite comfortable talking to the non-living. "She told me that she had been forced to commit suicide with Hitler because they would have pulled her apart and taken her through the streets."

When Maison asked her why she had received such mercy (she had only been in purgatory for 26 years), Braun told her, "I was sick of the killing, so I distracted him with my love so that he wouldn't have time to order any more killings." Her marriage to Hitler the day before they committed suicide seems to support this claim.

Historians had never been able to explain why Hitler spared the lives of thousands of captured soldiers at the end of his reign.

Although Maison's experience with souls is not widely known, it seems to be more in line with well-known mystic Maria Simma (now deceased) who was reportedly visited almost nightly by souls in purgatory. When asked what the difference was between her experience and that of spiritists and so-called mediums or channelers, Maria answered, "If the public believes only one thing that I say, I would want it to be this. The difference is very simple and very clear, and we must hold to it with all seriousness. What happens with spiritists is that they think they are calling the souls of the deceased; but if there is any reaction to their calling them, it is always and without exception Satan and his agents who are responding. Spiritists and channelers are doing something extremely dangerous both to themselves and to the people who go to them for advice. They are living an enormous pack of lies. We are not permitted to call the deceased! That is strictly forbidden! In my case, I never called them, never do and never will. Jesus has permitted this through his mother.

"But Satan, of course, can and does copy and fake anything and everything that comes from God. He monkeys God and monkeys everything God does. He can copy the souls' voices and he can copy their looks, but whatever reaction there is, it's always from the evil one. Don't forget, Satan can even heal, but those healings never last."

Books written about Maria Simma include "Get us out of Here'' and the shorter version "Amazing Secrets of the Souls in Purgatory" by Sister Emmanuel.

According to Maison, some souls have been stuck on earth or stuck in purgatory for hundreds of years waiting for someone to pray for them. The souls that are earthbound are often here because an injustice was either done to them or caused by them. The reason that God allows these ghosts to appear, according to Maison, is so that people will pray for them. So the next time you hear a ghost story - pray for the ghost.

Editor's note: Valerie Maison's name has been changed to protect her privacy.

PLANTATION GHOST? Australian mystic Victoria Maison prays over a ghost on the rear stairway of Destrehan Plantation. Maison described the ghost as a mistress of the manor home in her 30ís who asked forgiveness for being cruel to the house slaves.